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Monday, February 28, 2011

Here is another mixtape from the Apple Juice Kid. WhatUpWally? introduced you the multi-talented producer a few months back | See: Frank Sinatra Remixed.

The dance clash mixtape is for fans of Z-Trip and GirlTalk. some quality mashups with danceable beats.

Here is what Okayplayer has to say:Apple Juice Kid returns with a new DJ mixtape for y’all. The North Carolina producer and 8-time beat battle champion just dropped his new project, Dance Clash (presented by DJ Booth). With this tape, AJK mashes up 15 of his favorite mash-ups. He touches up samples from Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Barbara Streisand, Nirvana, and more. AJK handles all the mixing and production, and Stephen Levitin adds live percussion throughout the tape

"Shout out to Steve Stoute… you know what this shit ’bout
My whole family… now I’m scared of the Grammys
Cause everybody know that Dark Fantasy,
was the highest rated album in history, get me?
So I just avoid it, not to be exploited, not be recorded
Cause I cannot afford it, I cannot afford more shit and be in more debt"

Friday, February 25, 2011

The impact of sociology on modern philosophy was profound. Thinkers such as Emile Durkheim, Herbert Mead, Karl Marx, Auguste Comte and Max Weber helped shape the political, social, and cultural discourse of the industrial age. These sociologists were philosophers. They were part of the greater historical and cultural philosophical conversation. Their study of economic, political, historical, and scientific theory enabled them to explain the industrial transformation and construct creative theories to confront the social problems of modernity.

Before Auguste Comte coined the term sociology, sociological theorist did not exist – they were called philosophers or politicians. Today, the only philosophy sociologists’ study is early sociological theory and the new sociological theories are reinterpretations of early sociological theory. But many sociologists would rather not concern themselves with sociological theory and are even less concerned about a broader study philosophy. The discipline of sociology views the study of theory as a matter of orientation to sociology. Sociology students attend mandatory graduate classes “classical” and “contemporary” sociological theory but they consider the readings insignificant and complain that their time would be better spent reading quantitative reports concerning race, gender, and inequality.

Contemporary sociology has become one-dimensional. Graduate programs in sociology train students to apply classical theories and approved sociological methods to the study of specific demographic issues. The programs place more significance on reinforcing classical theory and entrenched sociological ideology than on the process of thinking and theorizing the greater determinants that influence American society and the world at large. Dynamic issues are simplified into interaction, conflict, or functional descriptions of societal problems.

Graduate students in sociology are thus socialized to study specific issues and not bother with the philosophies of how and why? They develop narrow minds as they focus in on the study of 2nd generation, Japanese immigrants in south Florida. They have not time to think about post-structuralism because they are too busy re-presenting stale formulas about inequality in education. They have are too busy, running regression analysis, to question the significance of Durkheim and Weber in this postmodern society. Sociologists have lost what made Durkheim, Weber, and Marx three of the most significant philosophers of modernity.

Sociologists have lost the ability to think.

Critical thinking is what made sociology significant throughout modernity.

The decline of thinking in sociology is the decline of significance for sociology. Our inability to think makes our journals, book, conversations, and solutions irrelevant to society.

Maybe sociology programs need to forget the methods and solutions of its old white men. Maybe sociology should forget the 60’s. Maybe sociology should lose its extensive databases of statistics. Maybe sociology should learn economics, politics, philosophy, English, and science. Maybe sociology should re-start its analysis of society where the patriarchs of sociology started, as part of the greater discourse of historical and social philosophy. Maybe sociology programs should stop emphasizing publication and start emphasizing thinking.

Maybe sociology can re-emerge within culture and help shape postmodernity as powerfully as it shaped modernity.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Emilio Rojas towers over the new school of MC's. No one can touch his lyrical abilities. Check the mixtape below.

Hip hop is exploding with young talent right now. Creative artists are pushing the limits of rap music and re-energizing a genre that has long been stale.

This is the video for the lead single from Emilio's Life Without Shame Mixtape. Ex-Girl is a remix of the Black Keys Next Girl and Rojas does the track justice. The video is a little graphic but it is a great visual representation of the song.

The real question is what took so long? The Broken Bells album was WUW?'s top album of 2010 and we were upset that we couldn't fit Dark Night of the Soul into the list as well. Even though DM only produce one track on The Black Keys 2010 release Brothers, his full production of Attack and Releasestill stands above most records in 2010. Danger Mouse has emerged as the 21st century version of Rick Rubin. Early DM fans remember the classic Mashup The Grey Album, which blended The Beatles White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album and most Gnarls Barkley fans don't even know who Danger Mouse is.

This is a remixed version of the Roots and John Legend's 2010 album Wake Up. If you haven't picked up that album - WUW? reccomends that you get on Amazon and dowload it today. In the meantime enjoy this mixtape which features John Legend, The Roots, Rakim, Common, Nneka, Q-Tip, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, K’Naan, and more﻿.

As if that is not enough... We are going to let you in on the only live mixtape that we know of:

Getting older is a realization that the things we looked forward to as kids may never really happen. Not that I couldn't still play first base for the Yankees, but who would want to be a stupid major league baseball player anyway? Nevermind.

What we sometimes lack is the ability to get excited about new things. We begin to sound like our parents as we comment on how the new band is not original, they are just a recycled version of Nirvana. As we grow older, all that is new seems to be old, and that which is old brings comfort to our minds. The world changes and when our favorite bands change with the times, we become unsettled - maybe even angry. But even after Bob Dylan picked up an electric guitar, Aerosmith recorded Love in an Elevator, and MC Hammer joined Death Row, we are still comforted by the memory of their first album and excited to hear the latest album for the first time.

WhatUpWally? would like to dedicate its excitement about the new Radiohead album to all the people who were upset that Arcade Fire's Suburbs was not as good as Funeral.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

The good folks at What Up Wally? have been vigorously attempting to catch up on all the great albums from 2010 that we missed. Meanwhile 2011 has informed the world that it is annoyed with all the talk about how great The National, XX, and Sleigh Bells are.

BUT, This is not about what has been or will be, this post is all about the most outrageous mixtape to drop since, well, maybe ever. Ladies and gentleman - What Up Wally? would like to introduce you to hip hop's best new super group:

The MMJB are the latest project from The Roots lyrical murder, Black Thought. He is joined by 4 of the most respected MC's in the game: Dice Raw, Truck North, STS, P.O.R.N. A few tracks leaked a few months ago and I knew this would be a classic. If you have purchased any Roots album, you will recognize these names.

What makes this mixtape important is that it is Black Thoughts first real step outside the shadow of The Legendary Roots Crew and, everyone's favorite drummer, Questlove. Many people consider Black Thought one of the illest MC's in the history of hip hop and he backs up those claims with his homies: The Money Making Jam Boys.